From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Damned Registrations]

But the Cathedral is a side area

I'm referring to the blue cathedral in DS2. That's not a fucking side area, it's a single room. If that's a side area DS3 has dozens of them.

 

[Arnust]

But the Cathedral is a side area

I'm referring to the blue cathedral in DS2. That's not a fucking side area, it's a single room. If that's a side area DS3 has dozens of them.

"See, this is a fair comparison of the two games, unlike the retarded map that pretends the cathedral is a side area." Very specific, my bad...

 

[Damned Registrations]

Fair enough. I've mentioned how shitty that DS2 map is a million times, I got sick of explaining why in detail.

 

[Arnust]

The man is back!

 

[Lutte]

The man is back!

Truths being dished out with no gloves on.

 

[80Maxwell08]

So after all that talk about the black knight halberd in DS2 I decided to make a new character and try it out myself. It's stunning basically every enemy I use it on and any enemy that isn't stunned by it's two handed R2 is basically dead or close to death anyway. I'm running a DEX based character this time around so anyone got any recommendations for a side arm?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So after all that talk about the black knight halberd in DS2 I decided to make a new character and try it out myself. It's stunning basically every enemy I use it on and any enemy that isn't stunned by it's two handed R2 is basically dead or close to death anyway. I'm running a DEX based character this time around so anyone got any recommendations for a side arm?

A rapier might be a good choice. It's light and fast.

 

[80Maxwell08]

So after all that talk about the black knight halberd in DS2 I decided to make a new character and try it out myself. It's stunning basically every enemy I use it on and any enemy that isn't stunned by it's two handed R2 is basically dead or close to death anyway. I'm running a DEX based character this time around so anyone got any recommendations for a side arm?

A rapier might be a good choice. It's light and fast.

Already have one +10 after all the speedrunning videos I saw using it. It's doing all right but I'm not thrilled about it on it's own.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well, it is a side arm. Side arms aren't meant to be used all the time

Other options are the scimitar and the falchion. I personally prefer the falchion because it has a nice move set.

 

[Lutte]

I'm running a DEX based character this time around so anyone got any recommendations for a side arm?

Level strength or faith. Pure dex is not worth it unless you are using a weapon that ONLY scales with dex, like, really only dex, such as katanas which tend to not actually benefit from other stats. Even then, if you're using pure dex weapons, they tend to be their best at being high speed r1 spam weapons which makes an investment into something like faith for buffing worthwhile (buff damage is far more noticeable when you hit multiple times than a single hit of a slow weapon). Also, the rapier still scales with STR enough that 40STR/12DEX is only 14 less AR compared to 40 dex. If you're not some speedrunner minmaxing specifically for the rapier and nothing else, I do not see the return for stat investment of such dex weapons to be worth focusing on when you could spread stats more to gain versatility of weapons you can handle or utility of spells.

If you like halberds, the best halberd of the game is the mastodon which has really high pure physical AR and scales only with STR.

In Dark Souls 2 DEX as a stat only gives you about half the return of investment so anything that has a C and at times even D in STR will gain just as much from levelling STR and just keeping dex at the minimal weapon wielding requirement. Unless you're intent on minmaxing a pure dex weapon and really don't care for versatility of weapons you can wield efficiently, just don't go full dex.

This broke the balance on traditional DEX classes like the curved sword too. Red Rust Scimitar > everything else.

I believe the original intent was to focus DEX scaling on funky stuff like bleed and poison. But, ehhh. No. That just makes levelling dex only about as useful as the most minumum requirement of the weapons you want to be able to wield.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How does that work? Is dex scaling not as high as strength scaling or something?

 

[Lutte]

How does that work? Is dex scaling not as high as strength scaling or something?

http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/scaling
It actually isn't. Each point of DEX is worth less than an equivalent point of STR for any weapon that has similar scaling in both (the old "quality" types like Zweihander).
Levelling dex is okay just to meet the minimum req for whatever you fancy. Just don't go past it because it's really beyond stupid unless you really fancy pigeonholed characters.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I'm running a DEX based character this time around so anyone got any recommendations for a side arm?

Level strength or faith. Pure dex is not worth it unless you are using a weapon that ONLY scales with dex, like, really only dex, such as katanas which tend to not actually benefit from other stats. Even then, if you're using pure dex weapons, they tend to be their best at being high speed r1 spam weapons which makes an investment into something like faith for buffing worthwhile (buff damage is far more noticeable when you hit multiple times than a single hit of a slow weapon). Also, the rapier still scales with STR enough that 40STR/12DEX is only 14 less AR compared to 40 dex. If you're not some speedrunner minmaxing specifically for the rapier and nothing else, I do not see the return for stat investment of such dex weapons to be worth focusing on when you could spread stats more to gain versatility of weapons you can handle or utility of spells.

If you like halberds, the best halberd of the game is the mastodon which has really high pure physical AR and scales only with STR.

In Dark Souls 2 DEX as a stat only gives you about half the return of investment so anything that has a C and at times even D in STR will gain just as much from levelling STR and just keeping dex at the minimal weapon wielding requirement. Unless you're intent on minmaxing a pure dex weapon and really don't care for versatility of weapons you can wield efficiently, just don't go full dex.

This broke the balance on traditional DEX classes like the curved sword too. Red Rust Scimitar > everything else.

I believe the original intent was to focus DEX scaling on funky stuff like bleed and poison. But, ehhh. No.

Well I'm just trying it out to see how it is. My original character was a quality build that eventually just pancake smashed everything to death by the end game. I just want to try out weapons I don't normally touch. I was going to try looking up a boss weapon to make a trio of weapons, one regular titanite, the halberd for twinkling, and one for petrified dragon bone. Still undecided on the boss weapon.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How does that work? Is dex scaling not as high as strength scaling or something?

http://darksouls2.wikidot.com/scaling
It actually isn't. Each point of DEX is worth less than an equivalent point of STR for any weapon that has similar scaling in both (the old "quality" types like Zweihander).
Levelling dex is okay just to meet the minimum req for whatever you fancy. Just don't go past it because it's really beyond stupid unless you really fancy pigeonholed characters.

Oh wow that is dumb. Its a heavy decrease too.

 

[Lutte]

Well I'm just trying it out to see how it is. My original character was a quality build that eventually just pancake smashed everything to death by the end game. I just want to try out weapons I don't normally touch. I was going to try looking up a boss weapon to make a trio of weapons, one regular titanite, the halberd for twinkling, and one for petrified dragon bone. Still undecided on the boss weapon.

Go buff build if you just don't want to even be able to wield weapons that can pancake. You'll have your change of pace but at least some more effectiveness to the build. Also most of the somewhat not trash boss weapons are either STR weapons or magic or faith build types like the Fume (STR) Watcher Greatsword (INT), the Defender Greatsword (FTH) and so on. Some of the high dex scaling like the Curved Dragon Sword require 30 str to one hand too while benefiting just as much from going 40 str..

40~+ dex builds that don't level other offensive stats are just so.. limiting. The good pure dex weapons are very few. Basically Katanas and the Rapier somewhat. All basic curved swords are outclassed by the STR variant so..
Scythes are basically worse halberds with a more obnoxious sweet spot to do their full damage (not hitting at the right weapon range makes them hit like wet noodles).
That's about it for all the weapon classes that are mostly dex focused. Everything else has a better STR scaling variant that hits harder and has similar moves and makes it really, really impossible to justify levelling dex.

Heck, just having high STR doesn't have to mean you HAVE to use a pancaking hammer. If you want to just try other weapons you can just discipline yourself and go to town with that red rust. STR is good for almost all weapon variants and has at least one weapon in each class that outdoes similar dex weapons if that weapon isn't a Katana, a Thrusting Sword or a Scythe. I won't even mention whip because.. uh, whips.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Well I'm just trying it out to see how it is. My original character was a quality build that eventually just pancake smashed everything to death by the end game. I just want to try out weapons I don't normally touch. I was going to try looking up a boss weapon to make a trio of weapons, one regular titanite, the halberd for twinkling, and one for petrified dragon bone. Still undecided on the boss weapon.

Go buff build if you just don't want to even be able to wield weapons that can pancake. You'll have your change of pace but at least some more effectiveness to the build. Also most of the somewhat not trash boss weapons are either STR weapons or magic or faith build types like the Fume (STR) Watcher Greatsword (INT), the Defender Greatsword (FTH) and so on. Some of the high dex scaling like the Curved Dragon Sword require 30 str to one hand too while benefiting just as much from going 40 str..

40~+ dex builds that don't level other offensive stats are just so.. limiting. The good pure dex weapons are very few. Basically Katanas and the Rapier somewhat. All basic curved swords are outclassed by the STR variant so..
Scythes are basically worse halberds with a more obnoxious sweet spot to do their full damage (not hitting at the right weapon range makes them hit like wet noodles).
That's about it for all the weapon classes that are mostly dex focused. Everything else has a better STR scaling variant that hits harder and has similar moves and makes it really, really impossible to justify levelling dex.

Heck, just having high STR doesn't have to mean you HAVE to use a pancaking hammer. If you want to just try other weapons you can just discipline yourself and go to town with that red rust. STR is good for almost all weapon variants and has at least one weapon in each class that outdoes similar dex weapons if that weapon isn't a Katana, a Thrusting Sword or a Scythe. I won't even mention whip because.. uh, whips.

After everything you pointed out I think I'll just keep the halberd around and go into STR some more. I'll probably discard the rapier at some point once I get more options and titanite chunks in, but for now it's still a +10 weapon.

 

[Lutte]

Rapier is always useful even if you levelled STR along the way. It's mostly good as a boss killer, if you're not a buff build you can go get some resins, that lightning being spammed in the quick r1 successions contributes greatly to the fast kill of speedruns.

 

[Wunderbar]

LITERALLY LORD souls

DaS3 brought Gwyn as final fight

bring back Ornstein outright

DaS3 brought Ornstein's armour

vendrick is Allant

no, he's not

basilisks literally stolen directly from DS1

same stolen basilisks are in Smouldering Demon Ruins

the dragons (jesus christ enough with the fucking dragons)

DaS1 - everlasting dragon, seath, hellkite drake, kalameet.
DaS2 - ancient dragon, drakes from aerie, sinh.
DaS3 - lothric wall wyvern, ancient wyvern, dragon from archdragon's peak, nameless king's mount, oceiros, midir.

nearly all the covenants from DS1

DaS3 takes more covenants from DaS1, a lot of them are redundant too.

DaS1 - Warriors of Sunlight, DaS2 - Heirs of the Sun, DaS3 - again Warriors of Sunlight.
DaS1 - Blue Sentinels, DaS2 - Blue Sentinels, DaS3 - Blue Sentinels and Blades of the Darkmoon (two covenants with the same idea)
DaS1 - Blades of the Darkmoon, DaS2 - Blue Sentinels, DaS3 - nothing, because there are no indictments
DaS1 - Forest hunters, DaS2 - Bellbros and Ratbros (but Ratbros are pretty different because you're utilizing traps), DaS3 - Aldritch faithfuls and Farron watchdogs (literally the same covenant, just different areas for invasion)
DaS1 - Darkwraiths, DaS2 - Brotherhood of Blood, DaS3 - Fingers and Moundmakers (although moundmakers have some neat ideas about being unpredicable)
DaS1 - Path of the Dragon, DaS2 - Dragon remnants, DaS3 - almost everyone can now get covenant reward via summoning pvp.

Nashandra is the daughter of manus even though that makes no fucking sense

she's not his daughter, she's a shard of his scattered soul. Btw, it is implied that Karla (Demon's Souls Yuria's fanservice clone) is a shard of Manus too.

Shalquioor is the cat from darkroot garden

no, she's not. You assumed that just because she's a cat? That's racist!

a fucking sunlight altar because DS2 just can't stop riding the internet's dick

there was a rebuilt sunlight altar in DaS3, right?

massive fanservice around the moonlight sword that should be an easter egg

Benhart's sword is fake and is made of glass.
Btw, Moonlight sword is From's schtick, like Patches. It was also featured as major in-your-face-during-cutscene thing in Bloodborne's dlc.

looking glass knight ripped off demon's souls as well

What exactly was ripped from DeS about him? Summoning other player? DaS3 ripped the same idea for Halflight in Ringed City.

like three versions of blight town

The Gutter doesn't feature swamp that impeds your movement and is actually fun to traverse, harvest valley is well-lit and you don't need to dive into poison unless you want those glowing thingies. While Farron's keep combines all of the worst things about Valley of defilement and Blighttown - it's flat, boring, and it impeds your movement.

iron keep is sen's fortress again, with ceaseless discharge as the boss

Earthen peak is closer to Sen's fortress tbh. Iron keep is just your usual videogame lava level. Also, it's Balrog, not discharge.

alonne knights are basically carbon copies of silver knights

you know what is carbon copy of silver knights? Silver knights in Anor Londo from DaS3.

lennigrast is andre

Andre in DaS3 is andre from DaS1.

and mcduff is vamos

no, he's not.

and in case you were too daft to notice, the green herald is a reference to princess fluffy tail

Yorshka is a reference to princess fluffy tail

and drangleic itself is a huge reference to the painted world... but yeah super original game.

what?

The Ghrus are nothing like the monsters you fight in oolacile.

yeah, except they look like monsters from oolacile, they have bloated heads, they can create poison fog, and Farron's swamp is literally Oolacile.

Andre is a waste of space sure, but every other npc in the shrine is full of subtlties and has interesting questlines.

like conniptions guy who is Crestfallen knight, or Karla is Yuria from DeS, or Firekeepers is Maiden in Black complete with almost same lines during levelling, Yuria looks just like Mephistofeles, Leonhard is Lautrec, and Firelink shrine looks just like Nexus.

 

[Wunderbar]

You're right on the money for McDuff being just like Vamos, though. Both have a skeleton. Fucking obvious fanservice, man.

lmao

 

[Lutte]

alonne knights are basically carbon copies of silver knights

you know what is carbon copy of silver knights? Silver knights in Anor Londo from DaS3.

This has to be the most striking example of just outright asspulls of all the shit he could come up with. Alonne Knights neither look nor fight like a silver knight. They are much faster, much harder to parry, their aggro range is "I see you from the other side of the planet" and "I can actually hear you moving a room away from us" and they are dressed in a fashion that's a halfbreed between heavy armor and ninja cosplay.

How deranged do you have to be to go that far into asspulls ? did Dark Souls 2 rape his mother?
As I said before, the level of nitpicking applied by DS2 haters is something that has never been levelled toward any other souls game and if we were to apply it to any other souls games you could dismantle any of them and call any of them garbage.

None of his comparisons are even close to the SCALE of what Dark Souls 3 does, because DS3 does not just bring a few NPC, mentions in passing (there's not even a mention of what the lord souls were related to in regular NG of DS2, it's more like of a NG+ easter egg if anything..).
What DS3 did is actually fucking bring back entire areas, although they don't look the same, but they are entire areas of the previous game. Anor Londo is Anor Londo. Full stop. Aldritch isn't even all that different mechanically from Gwyndolin which he ate, it's a boss you run to, mash that r1 button, and run once again after he ports.
Farron is oolacile. Literally oolacile. Not a mention in passing, not a few npc, the area, everything about it and its content. It's the forest/darkroot garden area turned into a swamp. There are dead mushrooms bodies, oolacile sorceries, Ghrus are the denizens who were infested by the abyss, the same that which happened to the original oolacile residents, it's a repeat. You can find items like the Stone Greatshield, Pharis bow etc. The Farron Swamp covenant is the exact replica of the forest covenant that guarded Artorias's grave. They cosplay Artorias and now also guard their own graves in an infinite cycle of stupid which is even admitted being stupid by an ex-member of the covenant in game, Hawkwood, who's also the only crestfallen character to grow up a spine in the series and that finds a new purpose after dwelling on his own misery. They even had to have a wolf somewhere in the area just like darkroot.

Smouldering lake may have a different layout but it's literally Demon's Ruins/Izalith. It's even in the same general location in game as it was in DS1 : you could see the area from the Tomb of Giants, although the game didn't have a way to access it from there in DS1 and guess from where you need to drop down to get to the lake? The catacombs. Now the catacombs themselves aren't where they were in the first game but they were unable to replicate the positioning because they made the decision to make Firelink Shrine a hub that connects to literally nothing because Demon's Souls Nexus. But disregarding the lack of the previous Firelink Shrine, the general location fits as on a 3d map, Anor Londo was right over Izalith.
And finally, importantly, another of the large areas of DS3, the Grand Archives, may not be a lore copy of the Duke's Archives, but it's pretty much the same type of level and experience complete with teleporting casters and the likes.

There's just no comparison to how much DS2 just plays like a straight sequel whereas DS3 is just aping everything all over again.
But not just aping DS1.
Where DS2's Shanalotte was a callback to DeS's Maiden in Black, she had a will of her own and different characterization. Meanwhile.. DS3's Firekeeper..
Literal 1:1 CARBON COPY. Down to being able to walk all over her in one of the endings.

This is when things add up so much, you go past the "it's a reference" event horizon into straight "we pulled our best photocopiers".

You can see recurring themes, references and so on in most From Software's games. But DS3 broke that event horizon where I feel like they were just trying so hard to stroke the fanboy ego at every corner, every inch of the game. It's a miracle we even have areas with their own identity like Lothric or Sulyvahn. Mind you, I don't hate everything about the game. I like the boss fights mechanically, I like some areas, and some of the new content is genuinely good: mostly everything that has to do with Pontiff Sulyvahn and his ambitions, Londor (the most interesting location is the one we can't visit) and the new Painted World (incidentally, all those things are connected. Friede is related to Yuria, Sulyvahn was born in the painted world). The twin princes are just a continuation of the true king allant "no one wishes to go on", a base expression of nihilism, wanting to just let everything meet their ends. The other lords of cinders aren't really expanded upon besides Ludleth. Aldritch has just become a bestial living stomach. Yhorm and his general area look like something that was rushed to completion and he's also yet another not so subtle DeS ref through the truly amazing mechanic of the storm ruler. Some 10/10 gameplay. DS3 is that weird amalgam of DS1 and DeS.
DS2 brought back the idea of Patches through Pate, which at least shows a different facade to the player, never really unmasking himself and his genuine intentions. DS3 brought back the actual Patches.

Every single one of those decisions, if taken in isolation, wouldn't be so bad, just bearable. DS1 had actual Patches too from DeS for example. But it's the whole. DS3 overwhelms with the photocopier. It just never stops. And the photocopier went mad and took some of Bloodborne along the way that just does not, plain not, fit the general souls design, like the beasts and Pus of Man designs. They stick out like a sore thumb. Meeting Iudex Gundyr was a genuine wtf introduction to the game. Thankfully, you meet the non-spastic form of him later in untended graves.

Everything about DS3 screams.. patchwork. It's like looking at a medieval peasant clothes that went through all too many mending to avoid having to buy something brand new. They could have spent less time aping and more time building, for example, on the events of the Profaned Capital and why the touch of the abyss reached there. When the game had opportunities to build genuinely good areas it made them short and missing content. Meanwhile it didn't shy at making large amounts of copy paste, swamps, and bringing back even the archives in a different location and form..

All plastered with the same shade of grey and brown.. it's the monotony of Bloodborne but with none of the mystique and cosmic horrors.

The most damning thing about the entire autistic debate we're currently engaging in is that people were so fucking utterly pissed at the sight of, what I ADMIT AND ACCEPT AS BAD, the presence of the old dragonslayer in DS2. They were so pissed. But the same type of persons in the form of DR and his DS3 loving ilk put their complete utter blinders to the sequel for no reason other than MIYAZAKI-SAMA-DA!!!!

DS3 is such a fine piece of.. disappointment, that's only saved by the somewhat grandiose feel behind the boss fights. You could cut down the entire game to a boss gauntlet mode and nothing of worth would be lost.

 

[L'Montes]

massive fanservice around the moonlight sword that should be an easter egg

Re: Moonlight Sword/Blade

Moonlight Blade is one of those things you just need to be ok with if you play Fromsoft games, and there's a lot of variance in how they introduce/incorporate it. It's definitely not a subtle easter egg in Bloodborne for example. They take it out like a big glowing penis and slap it in your face a dozen times to be sure you're aware what it is. It kinda runs the gamut in games like Metal Wolf Chaos, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Otogi, Armored Core, Ninja Blade, Enchanted Arms, etc.

If anything, playing with expectations the way they do with Benhart is at least a somewhat more amusing way of handling it than they do in most games. It fucks with players that randomly murder NPCs for profit too, something that was the height of game design when you were advocating for knifing the non-hostile lady in Lothric. And I say this as someone that wasn't hugely into DS2 reference-game intra-series.

They're going to give it to Ninja, random JRPG protagonists, the President of the United States, Japanese mythological characters, and so on. That's what they do.

 

[Arnust]

I feel like DEX weapons still have a more than enough comfortable niche. Their raw damage will often be lower, but their movesets and other mechanics like Counter Damage make them just as good. For real, the most burst DPS i've ever wielded in a Souls game (like up to 2000k in the combo) and that's before buffing anything. I don't even recall any STR weapons with a counter damage multiplier. Maybe the Estoc does but that's still like C Strength scaling.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The Alonne knights are supposed to be a reference to Silver (or black, rather) knights.
They have great bow snipers, they have the silver knight death scream and the Iron King drops what is heavily implied to be Gwyn's soul in NG+. You even find 2 out of 4 of the black knight weapons in the area.
Its subtle, but that's what they are a reference to.

As references go, its one of the better ones, and Alonne knights are cool enough to stand on their own merits. Dat armor.
No idea how they can see though. There's no eye slits in the helmet.

 

[Lutte]

Maybe the Estoc does but that's still like C Strength scaling.

If you had read what I wrote you'd understand C scaling in strength is either just as good and at times better (letter scaling is not perfectly reliable to know the bonus AR) than an A or S in DEX simply because DEX scaling is that bad.
In fact the Rapier, which is the DEX counterpart of Estoc, will only have 14 less AR on 40 STR with minimal dex requirements being met than the reverse, minimal str req with 40 dex. Rapier has a D in STR and a B in DEX. It should be utterly unviable as a weapon for a STR build that doesn't level dex beyond minimum req.. but it actually is. It's viable. Because a D in STR is still almost as useful as the B in DEX.

I have to repeat myself, but unless you are going to use katanas there is no reason to level dex beyond the highest minimal stat requirements of the weapon classes you like to use. STR allows you to use almost any weapon class and thus moveset of the game, along with some of the hardest hitters. In any weapon class that shares dex, quality and pure str variants, the STR weapon is superior. Mastodon Halberd > every other halbed. Red Rust Scimitar > every other scimitar.

Talking about counter damage, Katanas are the only weapons that are really unbalanced with that mechanic. The others have a value that is more well adjusted to what the base damage is. And contrary to your claim, STR weapons do have counter damage. Heck, Many Ultra Greatswords even have a value of 130 in their counter and some of their moves can be be boosted by the leo ring. It's not as high as the 150 of Katanas but the base damage is a billion times higher.
Lances also have very high counter damage. Hammers and halberds are averaging on 120~. STR weapons are not lacking in counter mechanics types.

 

[Silva]

Is this Dex need true for what games exactly? Because I just finished Thief builds in both DS1 and DS3 and I didn't feel it. Dex was pretty strong.